“Little we see in nature that is ours; we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”
Though Wordsworth was talking about the people’s disconnect from nature, here it vividly fits in to our world’s communities being disconnected from the humanity amidst the world of vicious state-violence, insurgency and chaos.
India just witnessed a major insurgency or terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, April 22, 2025, the likes of which have not been seen since the 2016 Uri and 2019 Pulwama attacks. So far, 26 men have been killed.
As shocking as it is, the internationally disputed territory in the Kashmir region has witnessed many a insurgency attacks and counter attacks by various state-militia and state actors, and this vicious cycle has continued over many decades, with various underlying trigger factors.
Among them, the late 80s and early 90s rigged-elections by New Delhi to suppress the pro-liberation voices with subsequent targeted extrajudicial state-murders of political opponents, and of course the Israel-style settler colonial violence in the post-Article 370 abrogation era. These have only further reinforced the unjustified attacks on alleged civilians in the face of brutal suppression of the UN-enshrined Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
All attacks on civilians must be condemned. This includes the alleged terrorist attacks on apparent civilian tourists in Pahalgam. There are, however, claims by the home grown insurgent group The Resistant Front (TRF) that the victims of Pahalgam attack were not normal tourists but were part of the New Delhi’s scheme of outside colonial settlers imposed on the region to change the demography.
In the end, the blame in this case ultimately lies with the India’s root underlying insurgency-fuelling settler colonialism policy and the failure of its intelligence and security apparatus to protect the civilians as the occupying power; or worse, its deliberate strategic lapses in its duty to protect civilians.
In the pursuit of terror
One hopes it is not Pulwama 2.0 to deflect from the rising fierce protests against the Hindu supremacist BJP-Modi government’s anti-Muslim Waqf Amendment law to justify gradual takeover of Muslim religious endowment Awqaf properties.
But what can one really hope from India’s BJP Modi establishment? One that is sparing no effort in supporting the colonial Zionist state’s brutal genocidal terror of Palestinians -- sending arms and manpower to fight alongside the IDF -- or in exporting IT tech logistics in aid of its genocide -- a genocide which is indicted by both ICJ and ICC for genocidal war crimes.
The BJP-Modi establishment can’t speak from both sides of the mouth by supporting Israel’s terrorizing genocide of Palestinians and expect to be taken seriously in its anti-terrorism rhetoric. Besides the West -- the US, Germany, and Britain -- India, under the Hindu supremacist BJP establishment, has been the largest and consistent provider of military and technical support to the Zionist state’s genocidal terror on Palestinians.
Now here is the crux: The geo-politics in South Asia unfortunately will only get worse before it can get any better. Few weeks back there was the terrorist insurgent attack in Pakistan’s Baluchistan at Jaffar Express train (March 2025) -- blamed on India and India-backed Baluchistan insurgents, BLA -- and now there is this matching one in Pahalgam, India-occupied Kashmir, which India is likely to blame on Pakistan. Let’s just hope Bangladesh is not next, God forbid!
Nothing can justify terror attacks on civilians, be it waged by the state under the disguise of counter-terrorism measures and ‘encounters,’ nor terrorist attacks on civilians by the insurgents claiming to fight for liberation from state terror
Blaming through guilt by association
In the end, it is the civilians who ultimately pay the price. All attacks on civilians must be condemned. Nothing can justify terror attacks on civilians, be it waged by the state under the disguise of counter-terrorism measures and “encounters,” nor terrorist attacks on civilians by the insurgents claiming to fight for liberation from state terror.
And nothing justifies using terrorism attacks to marginalize and terrorize any community using the neo-Nazi fascists’ favourite tool of “guilt-by-association” in order to malign an entire community.
After all, no one would allow -- and rightly so -- to malign Hindu communities world over for the 2002 Gujarat massacre, or the Babri mosque terrorism by Hindutva RSS goons, or for the Indian Hindu-majority state-militia’s waging state-terrorism and committing war crimes in the occupied Kashmir (under the state impunity AFSPA martial law) against the political liberation advocates.
Nor should anyone allow to malign Jewish communities world over for the genocidal terror waged in their name on their behalf, by the fascist Eurocentric Jewish supremacist state of Israel.
Likewise, no one would be allowed to justify maligning the Muslim or Kashmiri or Arab or whichever community by using guilt-by-association (though regrettably the West along with Israel and India have allowed this in the post 9/11 era of the Global War on Terror).
No one should use the guilt-by-association to target the White communities world-over because of white supremacist West’s unqualified backing of the Zionist state of Israel, and at the behest of the colonial apartheid state Israel -- waging illegal terrorising wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and killing millions in the course of such illegal wars to safeguard the white supremacist Western world order.
Condolences to the victims of the heinous Kashmir Pahalgam terrorist attack. May the civilian victims and their loved ones get comfort and see justice.
As for Bangladesh, the country has no option but to seriously modernize and strengthen its both domestic and foreign intelligence where the intelligence agencies can focus on the foreign adversaries and not focus on suppressing and disappearing the political opponents at home as it was rife in the 15 years of the former India-backed Awami League-Hasina’s corrupt, fascist, murderous regime.
Ismail Y Syed is a research scholar on Arabic and Middle Eastern politics, runs a strategic consultancy “ISC Compliance” on Middle East, Arab affairs, and South Asian affairs, and is a fellow at the Muslim Institute, London. Email: ismailysyed.substack.com. X: @IsmailYSyed.
